From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,d2f0af5e440b367f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-06-25 19:34:36 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!router1.news.adelphia.net!rip!news.webusenet.com!peer01.cox.net!cox.net!news-hub.cableinet.net!blueyonder!internal-news-hub.cableinet.net!news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/10.1.1.2418 Subject: Re: proposal for new assignment operators From: Bill Findlay Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Message-ID: References: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 03:33:24 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 80.195.75.181 X-Complaints-To: abuse@blueyonder.co.uk X-Trace: news-binary.blueyonder.co.uk 1056594876 80.195.75.181 (Thu, 26 Jun 2003 02:34:36 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 02:34:36 GMT Organization: blueyonder (post doesn't reflect views of blueyonder) Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:39755 Date: 2003-06-26T03:33:24+01:00 List-Id: On 26/6/03 03:06, in article bebbba07.0306251806.5789a018@posting.google.com, "Russ" <18k11tm001@sneakemail.com> wrote: > Bill Findlay wrote in message >> Your syntax is *in*compatible with the co-existence of the '=' operator and >> the ':=' assignment symbol. In your proposal, x :? y, >> for some operator ?, means: "x is assigned the value of (x ? y)". >> >> I now ask, what does a := b mean when a and b are Boolean? >> Does it assign (a = b) to a, or does it assign b to a? > > Oh, now I see what you mean. You have an interesting point, but I > don't think its particularly compelling. The ":=" symbol obviously > should not be redefined for this special case. So the answer to your > question is that a := b would assign b to a. > > It's not really an incompatibility; its just that "=" doesn't happen > to be one of the operators that should have an in-place counterpart. Is there any better reason for this than expediency? > It wouldn't be useful anyway. '=' for Boolean operands is every bit (!) as useful as 'xor'. > After all, none of the languages with "+=" have "===", do they? Ah! You think Ada should aspire to the arbitrariness of C in this regard. Which of Ada's operators do you think should be given these special privileges, and which should be second-class citizens? -- Bill-Findlay chez blue-yonder.co.uk ("-" => "")